Building a game scenario to encourage children with autism to recognize and label emotions using a humanoid robot

This paper presents an exploratory study in which children with autism interact with ZECA (Zeno Engaging Children with Autism). ZECA is a humanoid robot with a face covered with a material allowing the display of varied facial expressions. The study investigates a novel scenario for robot-assisted play, to help promoting labelling of emotions by children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD). The study was performed during three sessions with two boys diagnosed with ASD. The results obtained from the analysis of the children's behaviours while interacting with ZECA helped us improve several aspects of our game scenario such as the technical specificities of the game and its dynamics, and the experimental setup. The software produced for this study allows the robot to autonomously identify the answers of the child during the session. This automatic identification helped the fluidity of the game and freed the experimenter to participate in triadic interactions with the child. The evaluation of the game scenario that will be used in a future study was the main goal of this pilot study, rather than to quantify and evaluate the performance of the children. Overall, this exploratory study in teaching children about labelling emotions using a humanoid robot embedded in a game scenario demonstrated the possible positive outcomes this child-robot interaction can produce and highlighted the issues regarding data collection and their analysis that will inform future studies.Fundação para a Ciencia e Tecnologia in the scope of the project: PEst-OE/EEI/UI0319/2014. The authors are grateful to the Portuguese Foundation for the R&D project RIPD/ADA/109407/2009 and SFRH/BD/71600/2010 scholarshipinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

A Pilot Study on Facial Expression Recognition Ability of Autistic Children Using Ryan, a Rear-Projected Humanoid Robot

Rear-projected robots use computer graphics technology to create facial animations and project them on a mask to show the robot’s facial cues and expressions. These types of robots are becoming commercially available, though more research is required to understand how they can be effectively used as a socially assistive robotic agent. This paper presents the results of a pilot study on comparing the facial expression recognition abilities of children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) with typically developing (TD) children using a rear-projected humanoid robot called Ryan. Six children with ASD and six TD children participated in this research, where Ryan showed them six basic expressions (i.e. anger, disgust, fear, happiness, sadness, and surprise) with different intensity levels. Participants were asked to identify the expressions portrayed by Ryan. The results of our study show that there is not any general impairment in expression recognition ability of the ASD group comparing to the TD control group; however, both groups showed deficiencies in identifying disgust and fear. Increasing the intensity of Ryan’s facial expressions significantly improved the expression recognition accuracy. Both groups were successful to recognize the expressions demonstrated by Ryan with high average accuracy

Validation of the repetitive and restricted behaviour scale in autism spectrum disorders

Repetitive and restricted behaviours represent a common problem for various psychiatric syndromes, especially in autistic spectrum disorders, and they include a wide range of heterogeneous behavioural manifestations. An accurate and standardized description of these behaviours is needed to advance the understanding of this complex and heterogeneous clinical dimension of autism. The present article reports the reliability and validity studies of a new assessment scale: the repetitive and restricted behaviour scale. 145 subjects with autism spectrum disorders were assessed using the RRB scale. The RRB scale has good interrater reliability, internal consistency and content validity. Factorial analysis produced four clinically meaningful factors, i.e. “sensorimotor stereotypies”, “reaction to change”, “restricted behaviours” and “modulation insufficiency”. The RRB scale has good psychometric qualities and constitutes a real breakthrough towards a neurofunctional approach to autistic disorders. It should be valuable for research and treatment, and in clinical practice

A Multimodal Perception Framework for Users Emotional State Assessment in Social Robotics

In this work, we present an unobtrusive and non-invasive perception framework based on the synergy between two main acquisition systems: the Touch-Me Pad, consisting of two electronic patches for physiological signal extraction and processing; and the Scene Analyzer, a visual-auditory perception system specifically designed for the detection of social and emotional cues. It will be explained how the information extracted by this specific kind of framework is particularly suitable for social robotics applications and how the system has been conceived in order to be used in human-robot interaction scenarios

Supporting Families of Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder

This qualitative research study examines the challenges that families of children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) face when implementing their child\u27s treatment objectives. Likewise, this study investigates which strategies families utilize to actively participate in family skill objectives to implement their child\u27s treatment plan. Three caregivers (two women and one man) were recruited from around the state of Minnesota to participate in this study. A series of open-ended and scaled questions were asked of participants and the interviews were audio-taped for transcribing purposes. A literature review was written to highlight some of the expressed challenges and strategies families utilized and faced when implementing treatment objectives and these themes were compared and contrasted to the actual research. Research findings indicated that families were challenged by the availability of their schedules to participate in skill development, by challenges in caregiving for other children who resided in the house, and by their own physical and mental health concerns. The research indicated that some of the effective strategies that families utilized included involving other family members in the participation of family skills, working with therapists to generalize their child\u27s behavior to other contexts and people, and prioritizing time to work with a therapist on skill implementation and development. Being familiar with the challenges families face as well as the strategies they employ to address these challenges are imperative for social workers and other professionals who serve families of children with ASD. It is crucial as professionals to create and reinforce effective family skill development and the successful acquisition and generalization of children\u27s skills

Supporting Families of Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder

This qualitative research study examines the challenges that families of children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) face when implementing their child’s treatment objectives. Likewise, this study investigates which strategies families utilize to actively participate in family skill objectives to implement their child’s treatment plan. Three caregivers (two women and one man) were recruited from around the state of Minnesota to participate in this study. A series of open-ended and scaled questions were asked of participants and the interviews were audio-taped for transcribing purposes. A literature review was written to highlight some of the expressed challenges and strategies families utilized and faced when implementing treatment objectives and these themes were compared and contrasted to the actual research. Research findings indicated that families were challenged by the availability of their schedules to participate in skill development, by challenges in caregiving for other children who resided in the house, and by their own physical and mental health concerns. The research indicated that some of the effective strategies that families utilized included involving other family members in the participation of family skills, working with therapists to generalize their child’s behavior to other contexts and people, and prioritizing time to work with a therapist on skill implementation and development. Being familiar with the challenges families face as well as the strategies they employ to address these challenges are imperative for social workers and other professionals who serve families of children with ASD. It is crucial as professionals to create and reinforce effective family skill development and the successful acquisition and generalization of children’s skills

Desenvolvimento de uma aplicação educativa para o ensino derotinas diárias e quebra de rotinas a crianças Autistas

Existem muitas pessoas com o transtorno do espectro autista e um númeromuito pequeno de aplicativos desenvolvidos especificamente para ajudá-los nos desafios do dia a dia. Nesse contexto, entre os desafios enfrentados por crianças com autismo, se encontra a dificuldade em reconhecer atividades diárias, executá-las na ordem requerida e preparar a criança para atividades fora da sua rotina diária. Com o propósito de ajudar este público alvo, este artigo apresenta o processo de desenvolvimento de uma aplicação educativa mobile para auxiliar na compreensão de rotinas e atividades planejadas e improvisadas, além de permitir o acompanhamento de tais atividades por profissionais e familiares. Para chegar à solução proposta, foi aplicado o ProAut, um processo baseado em Design Thinking para apoiar o desenvolvimento de interfaces de sistemascomputacionais voltados para o público autista de baixo funcionamento (com dificuldades de comunicação). O processo envolveu a coleta de dados com terapeutas, familiares e o solicitante do software para despertar empatia por parte da equipe de desenvolvimento. Os resultados permitiram considerar as características específicas de crianças autistas não funcionais no desenvolvimento do sistema para desenvolver um sistema adaptável